Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
in Figure 13.4, the first keyword, as represented by the leftmost plot on the
x-axis, has a value a bit above 1,600, as represented by the y-axis. this seems to fit
just fine with our most popular keyword, which drove 1,612 visits to the site. also
notice that we have nearly 9,000 plots, which again seems to fit very well with our
8,834 unique search phrases.
looking at Figure 13.4, you confirm that your search phrases do indeed follow
the long tail and that you can apply long tail thinking to your data set.
Note:
The following post by Avinash Kaushik gives several suggestions for how to strategize around the
long tail:
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/03/excellent-analytics-tip-10-how-thick-
is-your-head-and-how-long-is-your-tail.html
if your data does not follow the traditional long tail distribution, you should
follow the data with curiosity and try to figure out why. there might be simple answers
to this, having the above data in mind, such as not having your site fully indexed in
search engines.
now, let's move on to a direct optimization example for content owners: the
task of spotting a drooping tail.
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Using the Long Tail for Content Optimization
let's take what you've learned so far about the long tail one step further and explore a
direct content optimization opportunity.
if you are a content owner with revenue derived from page view-based advertis-
ing, you can calculate how much revenue you are potentially leaving on the table by
spotting what is generally called a “drooping tail.”
Drooping Tail
A drooping tail is a long tail graph that does not follow the expected power law distribution, and
thus creates a different-shaped tail when plotted on a double logarithmic chart.
to find whether your data has a drooping tail, first look up your most popular
pages report, for a 3 month period or more, and export all the data to excel as described
earlier. then create a linear graph based on your data, as illustrated in Figure 13.5.
you will notice that the most popular page got about 16,000 visits, which seems
correct. the website's home page got 16,241 visits in the same period and was the most
popular page.
